Last November I was invited to speak in Paris. I had just taken a new job with a company called Obvious and I was pretty confident that this was going to be my last talk – maybe ever.

I had been discussing/thinking about this idea of guilt for a while (in particular the feeling of guilt that comes with maintaining an opensource project) and felt like the venue that dotjs was providing made a lot of sense. I also thought the French would be sympathetic and less likely to boo me off stage – which was essentially true.

I think something which works really well in this talk (while simultaneously being something I should apologize for) is that I prepared a 1 ½ hour presentation and then tried to deliver it in 20 minutes… in the actual video you’ll see about half way through the organizers turned off my 20 min countdown (I was the last talk of the day and in hindsight i think they were trying to get me to slow down).

This, coupled with my pretty intense jet lag from flying into Paris the day before, made me a frothing, emotional wreck… but i suppose it kinda works for the topic.

Anyways, if you watch it – I hope it’s at least entertaining and that you’ll have something new to argue about with your friends.